Sunday, September 28, 2008

Beaches of the Vendee The late September weather is glorious here and having just returned from a quick trip to the UK I decided to finish my tour of visiting all the beaches of the Vendée. It has been a mammoth task and has meant travelling the length of the Vendée coast from Le Collet which is in fact just over the border in the Loire Atlantique to the point at Anse de l'Aiguillon, taking every possible track that leads towards the sea. I have walked over countless sand dunes and along miles of beaches, photographing as I went. The reason for this selflessness is simple; many of my customers ask me what are the best beaches to visit, so for years I’ve told them which my favourites are. I’ve come to realise that this is a personal view and didn't cover those areas that I rarely visit. I therefore decided that producing a comprehensive critique of all of the beaches in the Vendée, including photographs, would be this year’s project. It has been a lot of work, but it has been extremely interesting. As well as doing quite a lot of research I have also visited other attractions and diversions along the way as well as eating out at different restaurants. I have come across some real treasures such as the harbour at Saint-Giles-Croix-de-Vie at sunset, and seen some amazing sights such as the thousands of people raking shellfish at low tide while crossing the Passage de Gois at Noirmoutier. These and many other gems can be found amongst the pages of the beaches which I am now in the process of completing, and which will be the most comprehensive travelogue of the coastline of the Vendée.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

I don’t know about you but when I search on Google for a term like 2 bedroom Gites Vendee I would expect to get information about two bedroom Gites in the Vendee. When I did this search i found #1 has 2 car parking spaces. #2 takes 2 babies. #3 does have 2 bedrooms as does positions 4 and 5. #6 has 2 bathrooms #7 has 1 bedroom. #8 has 4 bedrooms position 9 is ok and position 10 is my own index page, which may seem ok until you realise that i have a page dedicated and optimised for 2 bedroom Gites in the Vendee. This begs the question what good is it to tell Google that you have a page on two bedroom Gites in the vendee if they then index pages that have no relevance to the search term. occasionally it can get quite comical with pages about car hire turning up when you have asked specifically for gite accommodation, is it that Google thinks you may need transport to your holiday rental once you have booked it, on the assumption that you could find it in the first place.Our two bedroom gites, Sapin and Tournesol are quite different from each other allowing the choice of either Thursday or Saturday change overs and they accommodate 6 persons and 4 persons respectfully.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Well another week has passed and I’m afraid to say there has not been a lot of movement on the SERPs , having said that, what movement there was, has been in the right direction.The Gîtes with pools website did make a move from #51 to #33 which is not to be sneezed at, and all the other pages have made one or two point moves so we’ll keep our fingers crossed.The www.gitesvendee.co.uk site did not do so well and a couple of the pages actually went in the wrong direction, so it may be back to the drawing board on that one.We are well under way with the local attractions pages, the problem is every time I start a page I find I want to add more. A good example of this is the Marais Poitevin, I wanted to do more than just the Green Venice which is the more tourist oriented part of this fascinating region, the problem with this is that I now have nearly 20 pages planned, and by the time I've finished it will be like a reference book. The same happened with the pages on Vouvant and Mervent, the planned pages will make one of the largest references to these attractions available on the web. The question is will it do me any good apart from the satisfaction that seeing the finished result gives me. It's a real shame that Google doesn't have an algorithm for passion and dedication.On a slightly different note I came across a website where they have absolutely no passion at all for their subject, it lists the Vendée as a city on many of its pages and there isn't one picture of the Vendée. There are however plenty of pictures of La Rochelle, scores of pictures of bread, wine or things that could be from anywhere in the world, but they all have an "alt tag" with Vendée in it. The most annoying thing is that despite being obviously written by a ghost writer in the USA or somewhere suchlike, they are #1 for attractions in the Vendée. Doesn’t it make you sick.

About Me

Subscribe To www.vendee-guide.co.uk/blog/

About us

Gites with pools.co.uk at present exclusively serves the interests of the 6 gites at La Grange holidays in the south Vendee. We are however expanding the website to cover not only other gites in the Vendee region, but holiday homes throughout the whole of France. It is our intention to make all sorts of information available to those looking for holiday accommodation and to those who have gites or are thinking of owning a gite.

Running the La Grange gite complex since 1991 has enabled us to accumulate extensive knowledge of the industry, however we know there is still a lot to learn. We don’t have all of the answers but we are actively seeking them out, and there are always new opportunities to be explored.

For the Gite owner we will confront problems such as advertising, websites, swimming pool maintenance and standards and a whole host of other topics. We will actively be seeking input and asking for comments, and if you have anything that you think you can add or comment that you would like to make, don’t hesitate, simply email us at info@gites-with-pools.co.uk